He made a sound somewhere between anguish and denial. “Chiara—”
She silenced his mounting protest with a kiss, then drew back from him, extending her arm between them. Blood splashed onto the floor, pulsing from her opened vein. “It’s yours, Scythe. Just as I am... if you want me.”
His large hand closed around her wrist, his nostrils flaring as he held her in his grasp. He shook his head, his eyes hot with need and hunger and something deeper.
“My brave, beautiful Chiara,” he muttered. “God help you if you want me as much as I want you.”
He brought her wrist to his mouth. Then he sealed his lips over her opened vein and began to drink.
Chapter 11
Scythe let out a helpless groan as the first taste of her coursed over his tongue.
For all his tough talk and self-castigation, this female was the one thing that truly made him weak. She wrecked all of his defenses, tore down all of his walls. Her beautiful heart and fierce courage left him vanquished, just as surely as her blood was making him strong, healing the damage of his flesh and bones.
In truth, she was healing him in ways far more profound than that.
She was his. Even before he’d taken her vein to his mouth. In his heart, she had been his all along. And now it was real. Now, it was forged in blood.
Breakable only by death—his own, or hers.
He’d never had better reason to keep breathing than he did now.
And he would not fail her.
He couldn’t live with himself if he did.
She moaned as he suckled her wrist, his throat working greedily, drawing her in vitality, her life. Her love.
As incredible as it felt to know that her cells were feeding his, it was the taste of her affection toward him—the stunning depth of her emotions—that was the most powerful revelation.
She loved him.
He felt it through the new bond that was taking root between them. His emotional and psychic link to her gained more strength with each heartbeat. Her blood was alive in him, infusing his body with energy so intense he could feel it streaking through him like lightning. It was her energy. Her essence. It throbbed deep into his marrow and into his senses, a strange, vibrant hum that grew stronger with each sip he took from her.
He had never experienced anything so awe-inspiring, so humbling.
“Chiara,” he murmured, sweeping his tongue over her wound to seal it closed. He looked up at her and found her watching him with infinite tenderness. With so much soft regard, it staggered him. “My angel.”
She swallowed, nodding shakily. “I’m yours,” she whispered, reaching out to caress the side of his face. “And you’re mine.”
“Yes.” He was too far gone to pretend otherwise.
He’d been an idiot to think he could push her away right now, even if it was the safest, kindest thing he could do for her. She was his—not because of the blood bond he’d so selfishly taken, but because she was the only woman he’d ever truly wanted.
The Breedmate he’d never dreamed he could deserve.
He wouldn’t deserve her—not until her safety and Pietro’s was secured.
But he wanted her. Christ, how he wanted her.
“Come here, love.” His fangs crowded his mouth, but he took great care to kiss her gently, determined to show her that he did have some capacity for control, even if it was threadbare when it came to her.
He gathered her against him, and soon the warmth of her body, the softness of her curves, incinerated all of his good intentions. Need resonated through his whole body, heating his blood, settling in his bones. If he thought his craving for her had been torture before, he knew better now.
Spearing his hand into her hair, he wrapped the silky mass around his fist, once, twice, and then tugged her head back to take his kiss deeper.
Somewhere distant, in the back of his mind, a warning bell jangled, urging him to slow down, to leash the overwhelming spike of his hunger for her. But he was drowning in Chiara... the taste of her, the scent of her skin, and soon, that warning bell was nothing more than a memory.
He plunged his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers as she whimpered and squirmed against him. For one terrifying second, he thought she was trying to escape him, but then her arms slid around his waist and pulled him closer still. She was so petite, her breasts pressed against his stomach, her legs twining with his.
He drew back, desperate for more.
“I need to be inside you,” he muttered, his voice no more than a growl as he slid his hand free of her silky locks and skimmed it down her neck, pausing to trace her delicate collarbone.
She shivered, goose bumps breaking out on her skin as he drew her shirt over her head and bared her lovely body to his gaze. No panties beneath her pajama bottoms, which she shimmied out of as he watched, fevered and vibrating with arousal.